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Paste Magazine Forgets its Freelancers, Withholds Pay

Paste magazine shuttered its doors last week due to lack of money. And although the editors and writers laid off have a gripe, at least they were getting paid for their work up until the magazine ended. The same can’t be said for freelancers who helped Paste, even years before it closed. Gawker has learned that many of the freelancers continue to wait for pay. One was owed $2,700 for multiple stories over the year-and-a-half period while another one is owed $500 and claims had emails ignored from Paste editor Josh Jackson for six months.

Gawker obtained an email from Jackson, apologizing for the lack of payment to a freelancer.

I was way too optimistic in both thinking things were turning around for us and for thinking that investment money was coming in. We’ve been in survival mode for way too long and dug way too big a hole. Unless the rug is about to get pulled from under me again, the days of delayed payments should be behind us soon. Glad to hear there will be no hard feelings if we can get you paid, and I’ll understand the hard feelings if we can’t.

Sounds like just a sign of things to come over at Paste. Hopefully, the work these writers did will get rewarded at some point… with a paycheck.